[r9etb]

Yep. Or a fire—I keep thinking about that Swissair flight because their fire was in the wiring, and gradually disabled all the electronic systems and instruments on the MD-11

True. And if there were a fire that affected the signals being sent to control actuators, that would perhaps show up as "turbulence."

[wrench]

Occam’s razor.

The area of the crash was shown to have a massive line of thunderstorms at the time of the crash.

[TalonDJ]

True. And if there were a fire that affected the signals being sent to control actuators, that would perhaps show up as "turbulence."

Well fires would not do that to the signals themselves. But they still might cause things to look turbulent. Anyway, they were near storms so things WERE turbulent even if that was not what killed them.